Let it Snow!

The snow has come and gone and the sun is actually starting to shine; Rome is truly beautiful in the spring.

Again, I’m sorry it has been so long since I’ve updated with an actual post. It seemed that in January there wasn’t really much going on, and in February there was too much going on, so I have finally found a balance with the start of March. In January, the girls and I hung out around Rome doing the usual weekend outings, but for the most part I remained quite calm and focused on reading, running, writing, and trying to grow up. By the time February came, I was running around 30 miles a week, and (because of the lack of drinking, not at any help of my Italian all-carb diet) I lost about six of the 14 pounds in gained in Italy, and was feeling healthy for the first time since I’ve moved here.

Running is marvelous, it’s my time to clear my head, get out of the house and be in this beautiful city; well it was, until the temperature dropped to 24 degrees in the beginning of February. I wasn’t going to stop just because it was cold; I learned this wonderful thing called layering. It’s a foreign concept to those who grew up where the current winter weather reads 75, and a cold trip to the snow involves snow shoes and feet warmers. At any rate, I kept running in the 20 degree weather, snow hat, earmuff-looking headphones, double gloves, double pants, tank top, under-armor, sweatshirt, jacket, and knee high socks. One morning at the end of an incredible cold run, I noticed my left hip start throbbing, I had tripped earlier in my run (a common occurrence) and by my last mile I was in tears, because it was so incredible painful; I knew my granny hip was out of place :(.  This all so familiar strain came back, and just like that my number one goal for the year was gone. I had to miss my first marathon already. I was so devastated; I know everything happens for a reason, but this one I still don’t quite understand.

Towards the end of this 20 degree hell-freezing-over week, it snowed, not just a few little flutters, but it snowed and didn’t stop for the entire weekend, and continued off and on throughout the next week. That first Friday snow, everyone had to walk home from work, for the entire city had shut down, no school, no buses no metro, but there was this excitement in the air. It was really special walking home with my bum hip and healed boots almost slipping a few times, but I wasn’t alone, all of us Romans were in it together, which made me feel, for once, Roman.  My boys were so amusing! They actually wanted to play with me and invited me down to hangout with their ‘gang’. I think they needed a target more than anything and I was just that, and so we started a giant snowball fight ending with a few big lips and complaints that ‘holding someone down in the snow is against the rules’ I beg to differ.

Snow the next week in a poorly equipped city that hardly functions already just leads to more disorder, or lack of transportation, so you can just imagine Rome covered in snow. My boys had No School Snow Days, and I had to cancel working at the school to stay home, not to mention I had no means of transportation, literally the 990 bus didn’t work for a week. I was snowed in.  Exciting, until you remember why Aupair girls party so much, it’s not that we are these crazy wild girls gone bad, it’s that we actually become mad if we do not leave the house in which we live and work after a certain number of days. You see going out for us is our separation between Church and State. We can let our hair down, breath and bitch, eat what we want for dinner, talk as loud as we want on our cell phones and just relax. Imagine working all day with three boys, now I have the most amazing boys and I am so blessed to have them in my life, but after 12 hours a day of correcting poorly structured sentences, chasing them around with English books trying to get them to study, and explaining parts of  Eminem’s songs, like what’s the meaning of a ‘trailer park girl’, by day five I was in desperate need to get out of the house! My girl friends and I did what every Aupair wants the most, their own space, and so we rented a little studio apartment in Rome just for the weekend.

I remember looking down the main street in Balduina, and seeing the road covered with at least two inches of snow. A broken street light laid on the ground, and cars topped with at least a half a foot of snow. I was wearing my first pair of galoshes, my new (non-ski) snow jacket, an umbrella in my left hand and my baby pink wheeled suitcase in my right. It was around 8:00pm and there wasn’t a single car driving in my neighborhood.  The snow continued to lightly fall, as I started my walk down the hill pulling my suitcase through the snow, knowing that at the end of my snowy and wet journey there was freedom, well at least for the weekend.

After a much needed night out, the three of us decided to spend the afternoon snuggled in bed. We watched the snow fall from the window and drank green tea as we dished our recounts of the past evening. Every detail told, every question answered, nothing left unknown, and through laughing, crying, and sham we relied how much we depend on each other. “Girls, we must treasure these moments because they are so special, we might never have them again in our lives,” I’ll never forget when Nathi said that, because it is true. The truth is, I’m old, and I’m not getting younger, and although this has been one of the most difficult things I have ever done, giving up everything I had defined myself in and completely swapping it for a different life here in Italy, it’s moments like this that make it worth while. It’s the friendships I’ve made, it’s the lack of anything convenient that has made me stronger, it’s the pages of stories that may one day be told, it’s rigid, tiresome, demanding, contentment, discovery, pleasure and adventure all in one, it’s my current home, (you know) it’s Rome.